Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1887-03-26
Especial Correspondence.
MOUNTAIN, Pembina Co., Oak, March IL.

| the self-styled city of Pembina and the stir
| ring railroad stations to the Scandinavian
| hamlets of Mountain, Garder, Cavalier and
| Walhalla. In the towns and near them are
the few native Americans, chiefly New York
Yankees and their New England congeners; in
the northeast are the old French stock, and
westward, along the border, are the Franco
Chippeway half breeds, even to Turtle noun.
tain; all the central plain is occupied by On.
tario Canadians, in whom English, Irish and
Scotch blood are about equally mingled
scattered without special location are the
| three branches of Scandinavians, and along
| the eastward slope of the mountain and adj
jacent plain the Icelanders own and occupy
three townships, Garder, Akra and Thing
valla Garder is the name of the Norseman
who discovered Iceland, Akra means inclosed
acres and Thingvalla is Assembly place, the
name of that vale where met the ancient
folkthing or popular legislature of Norway
The so called mountain is only a plateau
rising abruptly some fifty feet above the
plain; three miles west of this rises another
hill for 100 feet or more, and from its summit
stretches another plateau, with occasional
basins, even to the eastern base of Turtle
mountain. The observer, taking his stand at
any point in the lower valley, sees spreading
around him an unbroken level without tree
or fence; the roads run with the cardinal
lines through open fields, rich in the season
with waving grain or heavy grass, but now
buried by snow and ice. In all directions the
comfortable cabins of the Canadians and
their equally well built stables dot the view,
till in the distance they produce the illusion
of city suburb; but as ne moves on they
separate, and he finds himself still on the
level and open plain. East and west, from
river to mountain, runs graded road each
mile
The soil freezes six feet deep and thaws
slowly through April; so the farmer plows
for wheat in autumn and drills it in as soon
as the ground is thawed a foot or two in
depth, as he fears that the end of thawing
will be followed by heavy rains Thus wheat
is planted early in April and corn late in May
or June, when any of the latter is planted at
all When the traveller has crossed this old
food plain, now black earth prairie, the
land slopes very little to the westward, and
there is brushy valley, west of which rises
the first "bench" of the mountain; there soil
and rock formation change suddenly; there
is heavy timber, and the water is pure,
of this hill country run few clear and dash
ing streams, which are soon lost in the three
sluggish creeks whick take their course across
to Red river, gathering salt and alkali in
their way until near their mouths well bred
cattle drink of them only under protest
Such is a very brief outline of the region
through which 1 lately decided to make a
tour afoot
E,1l- Il -
l arrived at the Icelandic hamlet of Mountain
by sunset the second day, and found pleasant
quarters in the little frame house of Herr
Yone Gibson, as they call him, though he
spells it John Olson. And after two days in
their little town, 1 must add that 1 have
seldom met as pleasant people as these
transplanted Icelanders. They are moral,
honest, neat, sociable and well supplied with
the necessaries of life. They are uniformly
well educated in the common branches, and
it is a subject of constant remark among of
ficials that the handwriting of an Icelander is
singularly beautiful, indicating neatneSS and
refinement Their preachers are as a rule
men of great learning, and in the library of
Rev. Frederick j. Bergman, of this place,
find the standard works in Greek, Latin,
French and English, besides many in Ice
landic, and the gentleman himself can render
Cicero or the Grafton on the Crown as f1uently
asif he had just taken his degree at Harvard.
The Icelandic is a branch of the Norwegian
tongue, with the notifications of 1000 years
of isolation, but they use the English letters,
with two additional characters, not to repre-
sent alien sounds, for they have none dis
tinct from the English, but to prevent those
awkward combinations which are such a
blemish in English spelling. Their mountain
town is a singularly novel looking place. and
in summer must be very beautiful. The
large white church, the smaller frame school
house, the two stores, saloon, blacksmith
shop and perhaps twenty dwellings, of frame
or neatly squared logs, are scattered for half
a mile through the timber and along the
brow of the hill which overlooks the great
plain. In complexion these people are singu-
larly clear and fair, in build they are stocky
and muscular, in religion they are Lutherans
and in politics they were unanimously Re
publican. But when Cleveland was elected
many decided it was their loyal duty to vote
the Democratic ticket, and now that party
has the majority. The French and half
breeds apparently took the same view, and
last November Pembina county elected the
Democratic ticket. And as there are near
5000 Icelanders, and their legal vote is about
600, they have become an object of interest
to politicians, and have picked up the party
Jargon with amusing readiness Indeed,
when one of them assured me that "free
trade is right in theory, but this new country
must have a protective tariff" 1 almost
fancied myself in my own beloved Indiana.
In relating the curious experience of those
people in locating here, it is not my purpose,
OF course, to write history of Norway and
Iceland; but TO fair understanding one
must note the following facts:
Something over thousand years ago the
Norway government was sort of aristocratic
republic; each local lord held absolute rule in
his little domain, and was the equal of any
other lord, and not greatly inferior in rank to
the king. When a monarch arose with I'M
usual talent, overthrow those local sovereign
ties and established centralized power, some
hundreds Of deprived mobiles seeded and with
their retainers settled in Iceland. They
reached the island in S74, and the millennial
was celebrated with great eclat in 1874. The
population soon grew to near "a, 900, and con-
tinued near those figures for about thousand
years With the exception of occasional ex-
periments in favored spots the islanders raised
no grain. Their crops were hay, potatoes
and turnips; their wealth was in sheep, cattle
on of,